


This Hunt

by incandescent (lmeden)



Category: I Am Number Four (2011)
Genre: Gift Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-23
Updated: 2013-12-23
Packaged: 2018-01-05 16:09:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1095965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lmeden/pseuds/incandescent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The gas station doesn’t have a single map left to sell, and John has been lost for a long time now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Hunt

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hesselives](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hesselives/gifts).



> Dear hesselives, I hope you enjoy this fic. I'm so sorry that it took so long to finish; you are an amazing friend for putting up with me. Please for give me for being so bad about this. And I really, really hope you like this and it makes up, at least a little for the difficulties I had in finishing it. Also, this is not exactly canon compliant, as I don't actually know the canon. *guilty*
> 
> An immense thank you to [faieance](http://faieance.livejournal.com/) for the beta. <3

The gas station doesn’t have a single map left to sell, and John has been lost for a long time now. 

He scowls down at the rack. Behind the counter, the dark-haired man sighs and leans forward. 

“Can give ya directions,” he says, and John glances up at him. 

He forces a smile. “No, thanks. I know how to get around here. I was looking for a friend.”

The man shrugs and moves back. “You buying anything, then?”

John pauses, then shakes his head. “No,” he says, and walks out of the station. 

Sam pushes away from the side of the truck as John approaches. “Find the map?”

It isn’t as if they need maps, really. John navigates by listening to the alien sense deep within him, a tug at the center of his being that guides them north or south, east or west, closer and closer to the brothers and sisters he’s never met. Yet he finds that having an actual map of the area helps prevent them from driving down roads that end at a cliff’s edge or circling back to pretty much where they started. 

John shakes his head. “No,” he sighs. “Next one, maybe.”

Sam watches John as he walks around the edge of the truck and pulls open the door. His gaze is heavy, searching, and John does his best to ignore it. Sam suspects his dissatisfaction. He sees the loneliness that’s been building within John, forcing its way out in prolonged silences and a too-tight grip on the wheel. 

He slams the driver’s side door closed, and Sam climbs in and follows suit. 

“Okay,” John says, checking the mirrors. “Let’s go.”

Sam opens his mouth as if he wants to say something, then lets it fall closed and reaches for the seatbelt. John shifts the truck into first and drives away, riding the clutch hard. 

 

//

 

The motel room is dingy and smells of piss, but John doesn’t want to draw attention to them by asking for another one. He yanks the windows open and takes the bed nearest them, leaving the one farther into the room, the safer one, for Sam.

Sam’s nose crinkles as he walks inside. He drops their bags with a heavy thud and glances around at the dirty walls and dubious bedding. 

The smile he sends John is amused. “Sure you don’t want to sleep in the truck again?”

John halfway smiles in return. “You know I can’t sleep when we’re in the truck.”

Sam laughs and sends him a dirty look. “That’s not my fault.” He sits heavily on the bed. Silence falls between them and stretches. 

John opens his mouth, then closes it again. 

“What are we doing?” Sam asks. He looks up and fixes John with his steady gaze. 

“You know what we’re doing,” John says. “We’re looking for the others, my family. Why—”

“That’s not what I’m asking,” Sam says. “You’ve been acting strange for the past few weeks. I could understand why, at first – we haven’t found any of the others, except those who were killed. It’s hard, I know that; I can feel it. But you’ve just been getting quieter and quieter. You’re going to waste away.”

John scowls and looks around the room, anywhere but Sam. They had found several members of his family so far on this hunt; all dead, murdered in gruesome and terrible ways. 

Number Seven had been thrown from a cliff in Texas, the red earth scraped and marred where he or she had struggled. John had fallen to his knees at the point where the earth ended; leaning far over the precipice, fingers scrabbling at the rocks, he’d just barely seen the outline of Seven’s broken body on the rocks below. Sam had had to pull him back. It had taken three days of driving for the burning ache within him to fade and dwindle to nothing. 

They’d never found Eight, not really. John’s alien sense had drawn him to a small hotel room in St. Louis, sheets on the bed crumpled and a makeup bag left open in the bathroom, liner and shadows on the tiled floor as if dropped from startled hands. The room had been covered in blood, bright red wet fading to brown in places as it dried. 

John hadn’t been able to drive for a week after that, the toxic mix of the sense within him tugging him back to the room and regret that they’d been only hours too late crippling him. His only comfort lay in knowing that Six was still alive out there on Five’s trail. 

John had begun driving again three days ago. Now they’re tracking Nine, the last of John’s brothers and sisters. The sensation within him (his internal, goddamned compass) has grown to a gnawing, and he doesn’t know any other way to contain the desperate hope that has grown within him except by staying silent. 

“I can’t help it,” he finally says. “You don’t know how it is. This is my family, but I never met them, and then when I do they’re already dead, and I can’t just stop _feeling_ that.”

“I don’t think you believe that,” Sam says with measured patience. “I’ve been with you from the beginning. I’m the one who left my home to come with you.” He sighs noisily and pushes himself up. He walks over and places a hand on John’s arm. John forces his gaze up until it meets his. “You’re letting the death get to you. You have to keep hoping and fighting this. Otherwise, they’ll win.”

“They’re already winning,” he says. “There are nine of us in all, and five are dead so far. For all we know, Six is gone since the last time she texted, and I’m the last one.”

“You know that isn’t true,” Sam snaps, his grip on John’s arm tightening. “You might not be able to feel Six right now, but you can feel Nine. She, or he, is right here inside you.” He lays a hand on John’s shirt, above his stomach and the tightening that has been drawing them on for days, farther and farther south.

John blinks, the touch drawing him out of his thoughts. It’s true. He still has reason to hope. And if he lets himself stall now, the next thing he knows, they’ll be coming for him. 

But sometimes it seems impossible. The task is too huge. 

John puts on a smile for Sam. 

Sam smiles back, relieved. He glances down at his hand on John’s abdomen and says, “I noticed there isn’t a TV in here.”

John looks around the room. Sam’s right, of course – he always is. 

“Why don’t we find another way to entertain ourselves?” Sam smiles. 

John tries to smile back. “Why do you stay with me?” he asks. “You have a home to go back to, a—”

“You know why,” Sam whispers, stretching up on his toes to reach John’s mouth.

But Sam had had a life back in Paradise. And he’d left it all for John. 

 

//

 

Sam’s face is inches from John’s, and their noses almost touch. John doesn’t move to close the gap. 

They’ve pulled the blankets from the bed and spread them on the floor, bunched a few hoodies from the car up as pillows. The combination is somewhere between lumpy and hard, but at least it’s cleaner than the ancient mattresses. 

Sam is fast asleep, eyelashes sending long shadows upon his cheeks and hair curling lazily over the curve of his neck. 

Outside, rain pounds down, drumming on the windows and thin roof until John is half convinced that it will come pouring inside. Even now, in the dead of night, the air feels hot and heavy. 

Sam’s breath puffs around John, and he lets his eyes close to take in the sensation. He won’t sleep. Not yet. 

 

//

 

They leave the motel with caps pulled low to hide their faces, heading out into the fog. 

The truck rolls smoothly through the grey, engine growling under the hood. John turns the radio off and peers out into the dull morning.

The mist has rendered the whole world featureless. As soon as they leave the town – which takes only a few moments – the distinction between ground and sky is evanescent, the leaves of the few trees that stand near the road melted away by the chill morning mist. 

The radio said that it would warm up by mid-morning; the fog will burn off. 

The tug in John’s stomach is as formless as ever. It twists and knots, an ever-present sensation of anxiety pulling him to the south. Soon, they’ll run out of land to drive on. Maybe Nine is in South America. 

This morning, it tugs him straight ahead. John lets his foot fall heavier onto the gas. Beside him, Sam leans against the window, face pressed to the glass. John can’t tell if he’s awake or asleep. 

He looks back to the road, and everything ahead begins to blur and fade into grey. John blinks once, then twice, and finally realizes that it’s nothing to do with his eyes. The fog has thickened. 

He brakes and pulls over, the gravel at the edge of the road growling and bumping. Sam looks up immediately, and John turns the key, shutting off the car. Silence drifts over them, and John can’t bear to break it. 

Then Sam sighs, an exhausted sound, as if he didn’t sleep at all last night. He pushes away from the window and shifts towards John. He presses his hand against John’s arm. 

“Come here,” he whispers. 

John glances over to find Sam’s brown eyes very close. His lashes flicker as he glances down at John’s lips. 

His kiss is soft, but desperate. John can feel the words that are pent up in Sam, seething without release. He wants to talk to John, but either he can’t get the words out, or he knows that they’re useless. So he kisses instead, pouring that sadness and desperation into the touch. 

John reaches up, slowing the pounding of his heart and forcing the light within his palms to die, and runs his fingers through the hair at the back of Sam’s neck. It’s soft, beginning to get too long. He should cut it, soon. If only he could be sure he wouldn’t make a mangled mess of it. 

Sam crawls closer, shifting on his knees. He breaks the kiss to take a breath before moving back in. He licks John’s lips and kisses him deeply, mouth open. John lets him and turns to face Sam completely. 

He pulls Sam as close as he can, and the kiss goes on for long moments. 

When they finally break for breath, it’s almost as if he can still feel Sam pressed close to him. 

 

//

 

The fog burns away, and with it most of John’s lassitude. The windows are rolled down despite the humidity and the radio blares. A repetitive pop song pulses from the speakers, its tune catchy despite the inanity. He smiles, tapping his fingers across the arc of the steering wheel, and lets the tug deep within him pull them forward. 

He flicks on the blinker and changes lanes, looking for an exit. The sensation has shifted subtly, and John knows that he’ll have to get off the road soon. 

His heart twists. Maybe, this time, they’ll find one alive. 

Sam glances over at him, but doesn’t say anything. 

“I think it’s west,” John says, answering the silent question. “Close, too, since I just felt the shift.”

“That’s great,” Sam says, a smile in his voice. “Want to call Six, let her know?”

John shakes his head and spares a glance for Sam’s mussed hair and still-swollen lips. “Not yet. Let’s check this out ourselves first.”

Sam nods. The corners of his lips lift, and he looks back out the window. John reaches out to turn the radio up. 

 

//

 

John hits the brakes nearly too late. The truck skids to a halt at the edge of the break where the road has been swept clean away. 

He shifts into park and opens the door, still trembling with shock as he spills out. 

“Jesus!” Sam bites out. “The road’s just… gone.”

It ends five feet beyond the truck’s front tires, dropping off into nothingness. Below, the river rages, throwing its brown waves up against the muddy flank of earth that the road collapse has left behind. John takes a steadying breath and looks up. 

The river stretches into the distance before them, and there’s no bridge in sight. “I can feel it,” he says. “Nine’s ahead. We just can’t get there.”

Sam grabs him, pulling him back and away. “Stop. We can. We just have to be creative about this.”

“We’ve _been_ creative,” John snaps. “It hasn’t been enough.”

“And we’ve almost found Nine. How is that failure?” Sam snaps back. 

“With the rest dead?” John’s laugh is harsh. 

Sam glares, hands twisting into knots at his sides. “Should we give up now? I’ll go home, and you’ll go back to Sarah. Quick, John, you might even be able to catch up on all the classes you missed. We’ve only been on the road for a couple months.”

“What?” John reels at the words. 

“That’s what you want, isn’t it?” Sam steps forward, the force of his anger leaking through the stiffness of his neck and the sharp glint in his eyes. “A normal life? With a pretty girlfriend like Sarah, a sports team to join, and simple worries like getting homework done?”

Where is this coming from? A sickness forms in John’s stomach, complicating the tug that draws him across the river, towards Nine.

“I see the look on your face when she texts,” Sam says, his softer tone drawing John’s gaze back to him. “You want to go back to that shitty little town and be normal again. I don’t blame you.”

John is shaking his head before he can even think. “Not true. I don’t want to go back there.”

Sam laughs bitterly. “Well, I suppose—” 

“And it’s not just because it was a terrible place, and I was mostly miserable and confused there.” He grimaces. “I didn’t have you there, Sam.”

Sam frowns. “What do you mean? I _lived_ there.”

“I didn’t really have you,” John insists. “You’re the one who’s kept me sane through all this. Sure, I might wish for a normal life sometimes – I want the homework and the sports and having to keep shit in a locker rather than the back of a truck – but I don’t want any life without you.”

Light glints off the tears gathered in Sam’s eyes, which he scowls and tries to blink away. 

“I barely knew Sarah,” John says. “You’re the one that stayed.” _Though I still don’t know why._

Sam smiles crookedly, then nods. “I believe you,” he says, but John isn’t so sure. Taking a deep breath, Sam throws his head back and looks John in the eyes. “We have to keep going. We can’t stop now.”

John swallows and nods. “Okay.”

“We’ll turn around and find another way. Alright?” Sam takes a moment to look over John. “I’ll drive.”

John nods. “Okay.” He isn’t sure what else to say. All the words have dried up.

He walks over to the passenger door and slides in. Sam starts the car and turns, arm over the back of the seat as he backs down the winding road. The river recedes into a smudge of brown, and then hides behind the trees.

He’d almost lost Sam, there. If they’d gone into the river, John might have survived. But Sam would have died - maybe from the fall, or maybe by drowning. Either way, John wants to be sick. Sam is the one who stayed, and if John hadn’t hit the brakes on time, he would have lost Sam, too.

The nauseous vertigo within him grows stronger.

And so does the tightening of the alien sense within him, as they retreat from where he can feel Nine. 

 

//

 

The dirt road throws up dust around them as Sam turns the truck onto it, and he yelps as he’s jolted into the side panel by the potholes at its edge. 

“Sorry,” Sam grunts, and hits the brake. The bumps slow, but grow no less deep. John grits his teeth. “You sure about this?” He’s squinting dubiously at the track ahead.

“Yeah,” John grinds out.

There’s no help for it. He can feel Nine straight ahead. So close.

The trees crowd close to the road, leaning so low that their heavy leaves brush over the roof of the truck. Spanish moss drags low and thick in grey, obscuring cascades from the branches. The dirt road narrows to a two-line track, muddy and almost completely overgrown. It hasn’t been used in a long time. 

After nearly five minutes of driving, the house emerges from between gaps in the trees.

It looks like the kind of old plantation house that is in the movies. It is sprawling and low-set, and columns rise to the roof from the base of broad steps leading to wide front doors gaping open. The morning mist is low to the ground, clinging to the trees and the open door. 

“There?” Sam is doubtful, and privately, John echoes the feeling. 

“Yeah,” he says, fingers twitching around the coffee they picked up ten miles back at the last gas station. He doesn’t feel inclined to drink it, and the heat sears his palms. It’s a comfort. “There.” 

Sam presses down the gas and they roll down the last of the drive, bouncing in and out of deep potholes. Puddles splash up, leaving their dripping remains on the windows, and the overgrown trees that line the drive drop heavy leaves onto the roof. John keeps the car in first and ignores the foliage, knowing that logically, it won’t hurt them. 

It takes a good five minutes to reach the front of the house, and only when Sam has pulled the parking brake and turned the key does John notice how utterly enormous the building is. 

It rises three stories high at least, and has obviously lain unoccupied for a while. The front face of the structure seems bent and hunched, leaning out and over them, the wood rotten and paint peeling. John slides out of the truck and stares up at it. It’s a monster, this house. 

“You’re sure?” Sam asks again. 

John doesn’t look at him. “Very sure.” The existence of Nine burns in his stomach, a deep and yearning sensation that won’t allow him to stop, or sleep, or really think properly. He’s almost there. All he has to do it keep walking. Almost there. 

He leaves the keys behind and walks up the broken steps, through the open front doors. 

The house is black. Rot has crept up the walls from wet ground, eroding the papered walls into grey. The scant light that creeps in through holes in the ceiling serves only to show John where to place his feet so that he doesn’t fall through the broken floor into the darkness beneath. 

The front hall leads to a set of wide, curved stairs, which John ignores. He heads towards the back of the house, through a parlor with a sagging couch and darkened portraits on the walls, down a long hall framed by closed doors, out onto the back veranda. 

There he pauses, staring out over the remains of what must have been a great orchard. The trees still grow in straight rows, their branches thick with dark leaves and the paths between them overgrown. In the distance, the trees end abruptly, devoured by the Mississippi River, which sweeps past the plantation and its ghostly crops, grey and shining. It has crept up towards the house, or its path was diverted some time in the past, and now its banks swallow up half the orchard, leaving the tops of trees sticking out of the water, growing smaller and smaller until nothing remains but the points of branches, and then nothing. The original owners must have been forced out many years ago; the building feel tremulous, like wet paper, and John is distantly worried that it will collapse beneath him it he missteps. Outside, the river sweeps on, oblivious, its glassy blankness hiding deep currents, and the wide swathe of its path ignorant of the destruction it has wrought. 

Behind him, a floorboard creaks and Sam steps out of the house’s darkness. John turns to look at his pale face. 

“He’s out there still,” he says. “Or she. I don’t know.”

“I don’t like this,” Sam says as John steps down off the veranda, wooden steps groaning beneath his weight. “It feels wrong. I think it might be a trap.”

John feels wrong right now. He feels tilted sideways and stretched two inches too long, hands sewn on backwards. He walks forward, to find the brother or sister, the only one left to resonate deep within him. He doesn’t need to worry about why he’s come to an abandoned plantation house, or why this feeling burns so deep within him the way it never has before, not even with Six. 

“John, wait!” Sam calls. 

John keeps walking, the wet, overgrown grass reaching up to his knees and soaking his jeans. 

The trees of the orchard close around him, and John has to stoop to pass under the low branches, heavy fruit brushing the top of his head. The burning in his center grows stronger and he lets his eyes close for a moment. His heart pounds heavily. Almost there. 

He reaches up to wipe the sweat off his forehead and moves on. One step after the next, searching. 

Then, it’s there. The sensation in him quivers, and John turns, rising at the sudden thrill that runs through him and smashing his head against a branch. He staggers and blinks, and when his eyes finally focus, he freezes. 

Nine lies dead upon the ground. She was a young woman with light brown hair that fell down to her shoulders, and staring eyes that might once have been blue. They are fixed on the leaves above her, grey and clouded over. Her hair is spread on the ground like her arms and legs. She had been tied down and abandoned, her limbs stretched and tied to the exposed roots of the trees she was laid between. Angry, swollen marks on her wrists and ankles show where she’d struggled. If she had bled, it had soaked into the dirt and faded. 

It looks as if she died only the day before. She is still lovely. 

John turns away and staggers, leaning against the rough bark of the nearest tree, and finds that his breath is coming fast and harsh. He clutches at his shirt and pulls it away from his damp skin, and tries not to think. 

Sam comes, running lightly, bent to pass under the trees. He nearly trips over his own feet as he stops and stares at Nine. 

“You were right,” John says, and Sam whirls to look at him. “This was a trap. And it’s already been sprung.” His gaze snags on the girl. Sam moves forward and steps between them, blocking John’s view. 

His face is still, and his gaze pitying. John wants to shoves him away, to let loose the burning pain deep inside him in a wave of destruction, but he buries his hands in his armpits and pushes away the idea. He can’t hurt Sam. Never. 

“Come on,” Sam says, reaching out. His hand brushes against John’s shoulder and they walk away, bent low, toward the house. 

 

//

 

The house reeks, John notices suddenly. The smell of mold and decay, and the thickness of the air, chokes John as they walk inside. He staggers. 

Sam tugs him on, and they climb the ancient stairs carefully. John peers through cracks in the walls at the brightening day. The fog is beginning to shred apart and thin at the edges, and John is getting a better idea of just how far this estate spreads. 

He works his hands out from under his armpits and Sam takes the opportunity to lace his fingers through John’s. He tugs John forward, away from the view. 

“We need to find a bedroom,” Sam says. “She’ll have stayed here, I think, and maybe they left her things behind when they… killed her.” He voice finishes weak and unsteady, but John is grateful for it; he needs the reassurance that he’s not the only one affected by Nine’s death. 

John nods and squeezes Sam’s hand. Sam casts a small smile over his shoulder, expression darkened by the thick shadows within the house. 

They reach the second floor of the house and pick their way carefully across the weakened floor. It groans under their steps, but doesn’t give. 

A doorway gapes open, the frame empty and yawning. Sam heads for it with a steady stride. John staggers, pulling back from Sam and reaching out for the wall to steady himself. 

“We can’t leave,” he says, the words slipping off his tongue before he can think about them. But once they’re out, he knows that they’re true. “We can’t leave Nine.”

Sam turns back to face him, and his expression contorts as he tries to get words out. “She’s dead, John,” he finally says. “There’s nothing we can do for her.”

John shakes his head, hand clutching at his stomach. The tug inside him has turned to a seething knot of sensation. “We can’t leave her,” he repeats. His vision clouds and John blinks, trying to clear it. He sways, and feels the wall he is leaning against give slightly, drywall sagging with his weight.

Sam’s hand touches him arm, and the sensation feels dulled to John. He tugs at John until he follows, blinking to try and clear his sight. It doesn’t work, and the sensation within him sharpens to a fishhook.

“Lie down,” Sam is saying. “Come on, you have to lie down.” But John can barely hear him. 

All he can feel is the grip upon his arm, warm and firm, reassuring in a way that words could never be. 

 

//

 

John stares at the dark ceiling without a clue of where he is. The fire is within him. 

He rolls to the side and onto his feet, moving quietly across the room. 

“John,” Sam calls. 

John hesitates, the soft voice quelling the tug deep within him, then pushes on through the doorway toward the stairs. 

“John,” Sam says again, this time right behind him. He lays his hand on John’s arm, jolting him from his reverie. John whirls and Sam steps back, hair mussed from sleep and eyes wildly unguarded. “What’s wrong?”

“We were wrong.” His heel slips, finds the step below. He shifts backward, toes reaching behind him. “She isn’t dead. She’ll still out there. I can _feel_ her.”

“She can’t be.” Sam reaches for him. “I saw her, John, she was dead. Long gone.”

But the tug within him, the fire that tells him where she is, still burns strong. She has to be out there. Or maybe someone else is. He shakes his head and turns, grasping what remains of the railing to steady himself. 

“Don’t.” Desperation drips from Sam’s voice. John hears his feet on the steps behind him, the groan of rotted wood. “Please.” His hands touch the back of John’s neck, fingertips cold and bracing, and send a shudder through him. 

Sam grasps him, tugging, and under John’s grip the railing gives. He staggers back, clutching the long shank of wood, then lets it fall. He turns, and Sam rises to the tips of his toes, grabbing the hair at the back of John’s neck that has begun to grow long, and kisses him. 

Deep inside John, the fire quails, shifting back and turning to embers. He can feel Nine out there, lying under the trees. But Sam is closer. He’s cool and bracing, like that shot of whisky he’d tried once, which had brought a flush to his cheeks and tingle to his lips. 

Sam kisses hungrily, and Jon doesn’t remember ever being kissed like this before. He wraps his arms around Sam and pulls him close, pressing their bodies together. Sam’s mouth opens, his tongue reaching out to press against John’s lips. John shifts his hands to slip under the bottom of Sam’s shirt, and he allows his palms to glow, warm with his bottomless fire, and Sam sighs, moving languidly against him. 

He pushes Sam back, and they stumble back into the room toward their sleeping bags. Sam kicks the stuffed fabric of the bags together and lets John take his weight. Surprised, John stumbles and they go down, he on top of Sam, knees sunk deep in the thick, stuffed fabric. He blinks down at Sam, who smiles back, his own long hair spread beneath him. John finds it in him to laugh and swoops down, catching Sam’s lips in a kiss. 

He arches, reaching up, and tugs at John’s shirt. The fire within John has almost died. He feels cool and refreshed, and he doesn’t want the sensation to fade. He kisses Sam deeply, lowering his hips to press their erections together through their underwear. Sam groans, sending sound vibrating through John, pressing his lips to John’s jaw, then his neck. His breath heats the shell of John’s ear and John shudders, sensation curling through him. He buries his face in Sam’s neck and hitches his hips. 

The friction sets John on edge, and a delicious tension builds within him. It is very much like the tug he’d felt earlier, except this fire doesn’t burn. It ignites him, spurs him on faster, and makes his heart beat harder. He rolls his hips again and feels, rather than hears, Sam’s breath catch. 

Sam reaches down with trembling fingers and pushes his hands into John’s underwear. He presses back the cotton, working his fingers around John’s erection. John freezes, breath catching, then moves, canting his hips down and towards Sam. He lets himself fall to his elbows and rubs his cheek along Sam’s shoulder, pressing against the slim muscles there, the soft flesh. He smells like sweat and a wet summer, like heat and musk. John draws a trembling breath as Sam strokes him. 

John shudders, opening his mouth to kiss Sam open mouthed. They breathe into each other, sloppy and loose. 

Sam’s wraps his fingers around John’s balls and draws them forward; the other hand tugs at his erection until it’s hard enough that John can’t think properly. Tension shudders through him, the winding of a screw that’s lost its threads and simply drives round and round. He runs his fingers through Sam’s hair and feels the heat of sweat on his scalp.

With a twist of Sam’s fingers, John comes, his eyes sliding closed as he shakes, his muscles tweaking as sensation floods him and his vision goes white for an instant, before fading back to grays, golds, and the color of Sam. 

He sags, pressing Sam to the floor. Sam squirms beneath him and John rolls himself to the side, reaching out and grasping Sam’s straining erection. Sam’s eyes fly wide and he arches up; John grips him tight and pulls, not entirely certain about what he’s doing but following the emotive cues of Sam’s hands as they fist in the sleeping bags, tugging and straining, growing more and more desperate until they shake free of the fabric altogether and Sam comes with a gasp. John’s gaze snaps to Sam’s face and he watches Sam’s brow crease and his lips part soundlessly, and heat pours over John’s fingers. 

He draws his hand back, and after a moment, Sam rolls to look him in the eyes. He glances down and then up, licks his lips as if unsure what to say. 

Finally, he seems to have gathered his courage. “She’s gone. You know that, right?” He knows Sam hadn’t wanted to say it; with the words spoken aloud, the fire within him flares to life and tugs at his legs. 

John reaches out and takes Sam’s hand, trying to focus on that. “I know,” he whispers hoarsely.

“Good,” Sam says, and shifts closer. “Don’t leave me, okay?”

John lets his eyes close slowly. “Never,” he murmurs, though he knows that it’s a lie.

 

//

 

There is no mist the next morning, only a heavy, sticky kind of heat that wraps John up and clings to his skin. He draws himself away from the clutch of Sam’s arms and slides off the sweaty sleeping bags. 

He wants a shower. He wants a proper bed, and a room to call his own, and the comfort of Sam’s face in the morning light. He doesn’t think that’s too much to ask. He reaches up and scrubs his hand across his eyes. 

The tug is still in his stomach, hot and searing. He presses a palm to it and rolls to his feet. He won’t give into it; not today. They should get out of here, find a new place to hide. Nine was the last, and with her gone, he’s lost all chance of a future with his family. But maybe John can find a different kind of happiness. 

Sam murmurs as he wakes, and John turns around to face him. He blinks blearily, gaze running up John, from his toes to his still-sticky underwear, to the curl of his hair in the humidity. He halfway smiles, exhaustion dragging at the corners of his lips.

“Why can I feel her?” John asks, unable to wait any longer. “Why is she still here?” His hands curl around his abdomen, unknowing, and his fingers clutch at his sides to keep the fire inside him in. 

Sam scrambles to his feet, then hesitates. “I don’t know,” he says. He glances around the room slowly, lingering lastly on John himself. “We should get out of here.”

John shakes his head. 

“We have to! There’s a girl dead in the trees back there! If they killed her, they might come back. They might even be watching us now. It was stupid to think that we could stay, even just for the night.”

John shakes his head again. “They won’t come back. She’s dead, and they’re gone. They can’t know we’re here. Why would they return?” He turns away and casts his gaze toward one of the larger cracks in the wall, through which he can see the dark green and gold of the orchard’s leaves. Morning sun streams over the trees. 

“We can’t stay, John.”

“We have to. Until I figure out why I’m still feeling this, we have to stay. If I don’t stop this feeling, it’s going to follow me wherever we go.” His fingers dig into his side, sharp.

He doesn’t realize that he’s begun moving until Sam comes up behind him and grasps his shoulder. “Please don’t.”

John keeps going. “I won’t go to see her. I just…need some air.”

As he steps out onto the veranda, he takes a deep breath, his head clearing. He pulls his arms away from his body and lets himself relax. The tug is still there, telling him to go to the girl in the orchard. 

But he can resist the feeling. He steps down onto the dew-soaked grass and tastes the crisp air. He walks back through the orchard and past the girl without looking, to the river. 

The water is silent, lapping gently against the sandy bank. Just a few feet away grows one of the orchard’s trees, its roots submerged in the water. Farther on is another tree, and the water rises halfway up its trunk. Then another tree, and another, until the leaves vanish completely under the grey water. 

Birds cry out softly in the branches. John shifts on his toes and slides them into the water. The cold is a shock, and he swallows. 

“It’s over,” he says. 

Behind him, he feels Sam jump. 

“What do you mean?” Sam asks. 

“There’s no one left to find,” John sighs. “No one to search for. We don’t have to take another step. We could stop here and just… never go on.” The thought is alluring, laced with the promise of peace and quiet. 

“Just because we found Nine,” Sam says, “doesn’t mean that we’re done.”

John turns, and the silt of the mighty river shifts around his toes. He stares at Sam, glaring at John with his hands in his pockets and his hair sticking up all around his head. 

“What?” Sam snaps. “You’re ready to give up, now? Sit down in the river and let it drown you?” He trembles with tension, ready to pull back, but can’t seem to force himself to make the movement. 

This, more than anything, convinces John that Sam really is going to stay. 

“No,” John says. “I wouldn’t do that.” He grimaces. “I don’t know what to do next.” His entire life has been dictated by this hunt – the search for his family. He’d always knows that it would one day end, but not so soon. He’d assumed that he would have a few years at least to think about this.

Sam sighs. “Come back to the house with me,” he says, moving close to the water’s edge and reaching out. “We’ll figure out what to do from there.”

John takes his hand. He always does.

 

//

 

“You need to make a decision soon,” Sam says. “I won’t force you. I can’t. But…” He hesitates, then stops dead. 

“But what?” John prompts, exhaustion, anger, and that strange pull fighting within him. He’s tried to think about where they’ll go next, but it’s as if his brain isn’t working. All his can think about is Nine under the trees. 

The sun is high now, and the constant loop of his thoughts has worn him down. 

“She’s going to rot,” Sam bites out. “She won’t stay like that forever. She’ll start to decay, and then we won’t be able to do anything with her.” He stares down at the girl, tension running through him. “I don’t know what you think we can do, anyway.”

_I don’t either_. John keeps the words in. He’s failed Sam enough already as it is: failed to show him the wonders that he’d half-imagined they’d find, failed to make Sam happy. He can’t admit to this last failure now, that he doesn’t know what they should do about the girl, doesn’t know how to save her. 

He turns away and stares down at his palms. They’re glowing slightly, their light soft under the shadows of the peach trees. He curls his fingers in and shoves his hands into the pockets of his jeans. His head lifts and he looks through the tree branches, staring at nothing in particular. 

The silence drags on for a long time, until John begins to wonder whether he should break it. 

“Your hands,” Sam says. “They’re glowing. They haven’t been doing that for weeks, and now it’s like they’ve suddenly come to life.”

John scowls. “Yeah?” He doesn’t mean to sound so aggressive; the tone just slips out. 

Sam steps around to the front of him. “John. Think about this. You feel like you need to do something about this girl. Your hands are glowing. What does that tell you?”

John will be the first to admit that Sam is more clever than he, but never before has he felt so stupid. Sam is staring up at him, face open and eyes alight. 

“Nothing,” he grinds out. 

Sam shakes his head and reaches out, seizing John’s hands. “These are _telling_ you something. They’re telling you how you can save this girl. What you can do for her.”

John stares down at his hands, light slipping through the cracks where Sam’s fingers have wrapped around them. His fingers are sinking into the heat of John’s glow. 

“I don’t know.”

Sam sighs and grips John tighter. “Tell me. Exactly what this feeling inside you is like. What does it feel like?”

“It’s like a tug,” John sighs. “A pull.”

“I know that. What else? There has to be more.”

John looks up. “I… it’s hot. Like a fire burning inside me, and it’s pushing me forward. I don’t really know, I haven’t thought about it.”

Sam bursts into a smile. “That’s perfect, though. I think that something inside you, something Lorien, knows what this girl needs. She’s dead, right? And you’re the only Lorien around.”

“I realize that.” John wants to pull his hands back, and a surge of self-pitying revulsion sweeps through him. 

“That’s not it,” Sam says. “She needs a _funeral_.”

“And how do my hands tell you—”

“If you’d just wait a moment!” Sam fairly shouts, exhaling noisily. “Just…”

John wrestles his frustration under control with what feels like massive exertion. “Sorry. Go on.”

“Okay.” Sam grasps John’s hands again. “This heat inside you. It’s pulling you towards her. It wants to get out.” He pauses and grimaces. “John, we need to burn her. Give her a proper funeral, instead of rotting here in the damp of this orchard.”

John glances around. He’s right; it’s wet here, and dark. The idea of giving the girl light and heat, destroying the body that has been tortured and damaged, feels right. It feels like they’ll be setting her free. 

He thinks for a moment, then looks back down at his hands. 

“I can’t do fire,” he says. “You’re right, it feels like fire is the right thing, but I can’t do it.” He opens his mouth, then closes it. “I just can’t.”

“That’s okay.” Sam smiles. “I can.” He lets John go and rummages through the pockets of his jeans and sweatshirt. He frowns, then draws something out. It’s small and metallic. 

As Sam lifts it, John realizes that it’s a lighter. 

“Oh,” he says. 

“Yeah.” Sam steps past John, his smile faltering, and walks towards the body. “I got this.” He stops at her feet, and John catches to the click of the lighter. He can’t let Sam do this. It’s his responsibility. 

He strides forward. “Sam, stop. I’ll do it.”

Sam glances over his shoulder. “You don’t have to,” he says. The flame sparks to light and his gaze snaps back to it. “That’s the point. I can do this for you.” 

“And what if I don’t want you to?”

Sam’s frown hurts John. “You don’t want me to help?”

“No,” John says, and reaches out. “It’s just…” He doesn’t grab the lighter, as planned. Instead, his fingers brush against it, pushing it from Sam’s grasp, and it falls next to the girl. 

Sam moves to grab it and the fire catches, flaring up and rising. The heat inside John spikes, sending a flare of sensation through him, and he falls to his knees. 

“Hey!” Sam yells, pulling John by the shoulders and sending him tumbling backward. 

Numb, he tries to stand, feet faltering. Sam ducks low and looks into his eyes. 

“We have to go!” He’s yelling, and John nods. He forces himself to his feet, using his power to propel him up and forward, and he brings Sam with him. 

The girl is on fire, burning hot and fast. The flames have covered her and are stretching upward, hungry, reaching for the branches of the peach trees. 

Sam is tugging on his arm, so John turns, and they run. 

 

//

 

John’s hands are shaking as he throws the sleeping bags into the truck. He lays a hand on the handle of the door and stops. 

“Come _on_ ,” Sam says, and turns the key in the ignition. The engine rolls over and sputters slowly before roaring to life. 

The tug in the pit of John’s stomach is gone. He doesn’t feel empty anymore. There is a pleasant warmth inside him. He steps back from the truck and walks away. 

“One last look!” he calls back, paralleling the house. 

“Dammit!” The door slams as Sam follows him. 

He rounds the corner of the house and halts, stunned. 

Smoke is rising into the sky, gathering just above the house into a thick, roiling cloud. Underneath it lies the peach orchard, transformed as fire rages through it and leaves shiver in the heat. John feels breathless watching it, and the heat reaches him even here. He turns away and heads back to Sam, catching him by the arm. 

Panting, he glares up at John. 

“Yeah,” John says, and smiles. “We really have to get out of here.”

Sam sighs noisily and walks with him. The reach the truck and climb in, and Sam shifts it into gear. 

As they roll away, John looks down and sees that his hands have stopped shaking. 

“What did you see?” Sam asks. 

John thinks for a moment. “The whole orchard was on fire. It was headed for the house.”

“Hm. That’s good, then.”

“Why?”

“It’ll destroy the whole place. That rotten house, the dying orchard, all the places where she died. The fire didn’t just give her a funeral, but everything around her. It seems… right, to me.”

John smiles at his words. “Sounds about right to me, too.”

He could do with a bit of fire in his life. 

 

//

 

They keep driving until Sam begins to drift out of his lane and the road has gone from flat stretches to hilly curves, the Mississippi River left far behind. They pull over into a motel set so low it looks like it’s crouching down on the ground, and get a single room. 

Inside, the beds are fairly clean and the bathroom doesn’t smell. John counts that as a win. 

“Where do you want to go now?” he asks Sam, leaning against the frame of the bathroom door. 

Sam drops the bags he’s been carrying on the floor. He blinks up at John. 

“Well…” he nearly drawls. “There’s always the Grand Canyon. Or that Arch in St. Louis. Or the Golden Gate Bridge.”

John shakes his head and smiles. “No, where do you really want to go?”

He pushes away from the doorframe as Sam walks towards him. Sam reaches up and presses his hands against the back of John’s neck, drawing him down. 

“Anywhere with you,” he whispers, lips just a breath away. 

“Ugh,” John groans. “So cheesy.” 

“You love it,” Sam says. 

“Yeah.” John smiles, and kisses him. “I do.”


End file.
